


Pin Cushion

by Actually_Crowley



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Getting Together, Kink Discovery, M/M, Not Beta Read, Piercings, Pre-Movie: Pacific Rim (2013)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 03:07:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16109498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Actually_Crowley/pseuds/Actually_Crowley
Summary: Hermann learns something about Newton, and in turn, learns something about himself.





	Pin Cushion

**Author's Note:**

> This is hella self indulgent you guys, holy shit. I'm sort of a big fan of seeing how many different ways these two can get together, so you'll probably be seeing a lot of these kinds of stories from me.

If Hermann hadn’t insisted that Newton climbed the ladder to erase the impressively detailed but still unwanted drawing of Trespasser he’d polluted upon his freshly renewed chalkboard, he might not have ever known. Newton was shorter than him, and he hadn’t the habit of staring too long at anyone’s face, but from this angle it was clear. There was something _shiny_ inside of Newton’s nose. Hermann had been busy scowling at him when finally he noticed it.

“Dr. Geiszler?”

“What? Are you gonna drag my chalk board cleaning method, too?”

Hermann scoffed and crossed his arms. “Well I would prefer if you picked a direction while scrubbing and stayed with it, you’ll leave uneven streaks when you’re done, the way you’re going about it. But no. You-” This suddenly felt like a stupid thing to say. “You have something inside of your nose.”

Newton stared at him blankly, as if he had no idea what on earth he was talking about (although Hermann had no clue how he could not with the size of whatever that thing was in there). Then realisation seemed to hit him. “Oh! Keep forgetting you don’t know about that.” He reached into his nose, causing Hermann to reel back in disgust. It was staunched as Newton seamlessly flipped something down from inside; It was a horseshoe piercing. Newton had a bar of _metal_ through his _septum_. Hermann’s chest clenched in a confusing, twisted sort of way.

Newton continued as if Hermann didn’t look like he was in a state of shock. “I’ve had this since I wassss… nineteen I think? I got it on a dare, but I left it there because it was badass. I’m sure if you look up some old photos of me from MIT, I’ve got it out. I don’t even think about it anymore, I guess I’m just so used to it, now.”

The look of abject horror never left Hermann’s face.

Newton blinked after a beat and glanced at his hand. “Oh. I guess you want me to go wash my hands now, huh?”

“ _Obviously!_ ” Hermann shrieked at him, incensed and loud, and accompanied by a weak but swift whack in the leg with his cane to get him to come down from the ladder faster.

“Ow, ow, okay, okay!” Newton scrambled down the stairs and hurried to the hand wash sink, flipping the piercing back into his nose.

Hermann stomped after him. “And do not bother coming back over here to finish the boards, you were doing a piss-poor job of it as it is!” He turned away from him and scaled the ladder himself to finish cleaning. The move had the added bonus of turning himself away from Newton and hiding the befuddling heat rising to his face. Where the hell did his body get off reacting this way to such a disgusting thing!? It had no right!

He scrubbed at the board harder than he meant to, but he did it with practiced even strokes. Perhaps Newton would see and take note, because Hermann knew he would inevitably sully the boards again.

~

Hermann discovered something else when Newton was busy tearing apart his models and algorithms. “-And I don’t even wanna know how you could possibly think that the kaiju are working around some kind of _schedule_.” Newton drew out the word and pronounced it ‘shedule’ in the tone he liked to drawl in when mocking Hermann.

Hermann ignored it. “And I do not understand how you cannot believe that they are! There is a very clear pattern here, so clear an _infant_ could see it-”

“If an infant could see it, then why the hell did you need twenty seven equations to get you to this conclusion?” Newton smirked at him and turned his head to the side to regard the board again.

Whatever he said next dulled to a background hum as Hermann was suddenly given a clear view of the side of Newton’s head. At the lobe of his ear, barely visible and near unnoticeable if Hermann’s brain didn’t constantly remind him ‘ _pierced!_ ’ when Newton walked into the room, was a small, pinprick-sized hole. A little more searching, and Hermann found another up in the shell of his ear.

Hermann’s gaze zeroed in. “Dr. Geiszler, when did you pierce your ears?” He realised the question had interrupted Newton out of nowhere when the shorter man jerked his head, looking offended at first that everything he’d said had just been derailed. But then, his face shifted to a pensive one.

“Uh, when I was ten.” Newton answered after a confused few seconds.

If Hermann had been drinking something, he might have spit it out. Instead, he made an appalled squawking noise. “ _Ten!?_ That’s hardly an age to decide freely to go putting holes in one’s body!”

Newton leaned away from him. “Whoa dude, little girls do that shit all the time. Why not me? Besides, I only made that decision after I used my allowance to buy these cool metal beetles I saw in the store and then found out they were earrings and I could _wear them_.”

Hermann still stared. He found himself imagining Newton with a pair of tiny, beetle shaped earrings in his ears, and it was simultaneously endearing and _incredibly attractive_.

He’d apparently been silent too long, because Newton felt the need to continue. “My uncle Illia took me. Dad was _pissed_ about it for like a week until he saw how happy I was. I still have those things somewhere-”

“And the cartilidge?” Hermann asked before he could stop himself.

Newton beamed at him. “Two years ago.”

“ _Why?_ ”

“I was bored?”

Hermann scoffed. “Of all the impulsive- There are better ways to spend your time than purposely inflicting _pain_ on yourself for aesthetics!”

Newton’s eyebrow rose with disbelief and amusement. “Uh, I’m sorry, apparently we haven’t met. Hey there, Dr. Newton Geiszler, call me Newt. I’m half covered in tattoos and have probably seen more needles than a pine tree.” He stuck his hand out as if to shake Hermann’s.

Hermann reeled back from him instead. “Oh, do go back to your bloody intestines would you!?” He smacked the hand away and returned to his boards. “I have work to do.”

Newton chuckled at him, but he complied against all odds.

Hermann took a deep, slow breath and tried to calm his heart right the hell down. Perhaps he could join some of the J-tech members in their morning yoga? At the very least, he could learn some de-stressing techniques.

~

A third discovery was made on a day that began with Newton cursing and bolting across the lab to the chemical shower. “Shit, shit, shit, _shit, shit!_ ” Newton scuttled straight past Hermann as he walked in, with blue down his apron and on his shirt and tie. As much as Hermann hoped whatever it was would eat away that ridiculously thin and pointless piece of fabric, it wouldn’t do any good; By Newton’s own admission, it was the only sort of tie that he owned, and he had several more waiting in the wings.

Hermann rolled his eyes as Newton threw off his clothing behind the foggy window of the shower. “Do I really need to call medical this early in the morning, Dr. Geiszler?” He asked, stomping his way to a landline.

“No! No, I caught it in time! _Fuck_ that’s cold.” Newton bounced in the cold shower, wishing it would warm the hell up already. Hermann shook his head and began making his way to his side of the lab.

“Hey Hermann?”

Hermann froze mid-stride and sighed. “ _Yes_ , Newton?”

“Can you do me favour and open the bottom drawer of my desk? There’s a pair of sweats and a t-shirt in there. I took your advice and started a stock, since more and more of these damn organs have been popping like balloons on me.” There was a hint of shame in his voice. Whether it had something to do with having to agree with Hermann that he was accident prone, or just that he’d agreed with Hermann on anything, Hermann couldn’t tell.

Nor did it really matter. “It’s nice to see some of my reasoning is cracking through that thick skull of yours.” Hermann wandered to the desk and found the clothing in question tucked under a secretly stashed energy drink and a massive binder full of Newton’s mad ramblings.

He walked them over to the shower once he heard it stop, and Newton donned a towel behind the foggy glass. The damp biologist rounded the wall and held a grateful hand out to Hermann. “Thanks, man.”

Hermann did not hand him the clothing. His gaze was locked squarely on Newton’s chest, and his hand clenched the clothing so hard, that fabric creaked against itself. On either side of Newton’s nipples were tiny, metal orbs. The breath refused to leave Hermann’s lungs.

Newton looked concerned. “Uh, Hermann? I’m cold, dude.”

“I can tell-” Fell out of Hermann’s mouth the second he let that frozen gasp go. He squeezed his eyes shut and thrust the outfit into Newton’s waiting hand blindly. “When- When on _earth_ did you find time to-… to-…!” Oh god, he couldn’t even _say it_.

Newton took the clothes and eyed Hermann with confusion. “Wha-…” He looked down at his chest and saw the piercings there. He laughed. “Herms, you can’t possibly tell me you’ve never seen these before.”

“I have _not!_ ”

“Dude, _how!?_ I have been in this shower _dozens_ of times! Hell, you were even in here with me once!” He nearly cackled as he threw the t-shirt over his head.

“I do not make it a _habit_ to watch my lab partner bathe! And back then I was much too busy tending to myself and ensuring you hadn’t burnt a hole through my arm!” Hermann only turned back to glare at Newton when he heard the laughter clearly again as the fabric was pulled into place over his chest where it belonged-

But it didn’t help. Now that Hermann was aware the jewelry was there, he could see it pressing out against the fabric of the shirt- _Dear Lord this wasn’t fair_. He gave an indignant huff and stomped away from Newton as angrily as he could muster. “You are a walking infection risk, Dr. Geiszler!”

He didn’t look at Newton the rest of the day. Even when Newton eventually went back to his quarters to change, the shirt he returned in revealed the piercings even easier than the t-shirt had. Hermann swallowed his nerves and carried on, trying to pretend his numbers weren’t wobblier than they had been on the rest of the boards.

~

Newton straight up gave Hermann surprises four, five, and six.

“I had my lip pierced for a while too, ya know,” He had said from his paperwork after an hour of silence one morning.

Hermann’s chalk halted with a screech, and he spun to glare at Newton. “I do not care.”

“Had my eyebrow, too. That one was badass.” Newton said, scribbling something into his binder from his notes on blue stained paper. “I eventually just took those out because they kept getting caught on my shirts, but man, I looked awesome.”

Hermann nearly chucked his piece of chalk into the tray. “Why do you think I give a single damn what piercings you may or may not have had?”

Newton blinked up at him. “Because you keep freaking out on me every time you find out I’ve got another one! Geez, maybe I’m just trying to keep from shocking you into having an old man heart attack.” He chuckled. “‘Kids these days!’” He said in his best old Englishman voice.

“It is not that it is _shocking,_ ” Hermann lied, but he didn’t want to give Newton the win. He turned away from him and snatched his chalk up again. “It is simply that every time I think you cannot possibly be any less professional, I find out that I am sorely mistaken!”

He could hear Newton grinning in his next words. “Hermann, did you just admit you were _wrong_ about something?” He heard Newton’s chair roll away from his desk, followed by the telltale sound of him crossing the damn line.

Hermann huffed and turned around. “Honestly Newton, it’s like there isn’t a line at all-”

“Aw come on, you know it’s only for viscera-”

“You do not even abide by _that simple rule!_ ”

“Then why are you expecting me to listen to this one!?” Newton was much closer than Hermann felt comfortable with, and Hermann’s shoulders bunched up with his nerves. “Come on, I just wanna show you something-”

“I do not wish to see anything else you have to show!”

“Last one, I swear!” And before Hermann could argue any further, Newton stuck out his tongue. Through the centre of the muscle was another bar, simple and silver in nature, but blinding in the lab lights.

 _That_ was absolutely not there before. With their shouting matches, he absolutely would have seen the tongue piercing before this moment. “W-When-… H-How-…”

Newton retracted his tongue to speak. “I’ve had it since I was teaching. First one I did myself too; that was an adventure. I usually don’t wear it, especially in the lab, but I’ll wear it when I’m in my quarters just to make sure the damn thing doesn’t close up.” He smiled at him. “I’m holding out to see if I can get a bit of kaiju bioluminescence locked in a resin and fashioned into one later. Maybe I’ll wear it as a trophy when the war’s over.”

Hermann’s imagination went wild with the ridiculous notion and envisioned Newton’s tongue back out, with an opalised, blue, glowing bead staring back at him. The image took away what control remained in his legs. He reached for the ladder to steady himself, but it rolled away when he tried to put any weight on it. He stumbled sideways, but Newton lurched forward to catch him before he fell completely to the floor.

“Whoa! Didn’t take you for being squeamish dude, especially not in a lab with me.”

They were chest to chest for two seconds. It only took half of one for Hermann to feel the piercings within Newton’s lightweight shirt pressing against him. He launched himself away from Newton harder and faster than he’d believed he could move and slammed his back against his chalkboards. His eyes were wide and wild, his face red, and damn it all, his breath was coming up short.

And Newton seemed to be misunderstanding because instead of looking appalled or angry, he looked concerned. “Is… _Is_ this like a needle phobia, because if it is, I just spent the last five minutes being a dick, but I blame you because you didn’t tell me.” Despite his words, they still sounded caring, as if any moment now, he’d follow it up with ‘What can I do to help?’

Hermann shoved himself away from the board and sidestepped the biologist. “You know very well I do not have a _needle_ phobia- I am not the one who passed out during the mandatory blood draw your _research_ made us go through last month!” Yeah, that was it. Derail the conversation so Newton couldn’t ask anymore questions.

“Hey, they took a lot of blood, okay!?” He followed after Hermann. “Seriously though dude, if it’s not a phobia, what gives? This is too big of a reaction to just be distaste. What, have you got a thing for piercings or something?”

All at once, all of the heat left the room and crowded itself into Hermann’s body instead. He froze his stride so he would not wobble, and his grip on his cane bleached his knuckles. The air locked in his throat, and he threw a hand over his mouth when any retort he may have thought of threatened to come out as a squeak.

Newton had frozen as well. “Oh- Oh _shit_ , you do, don’t you? Fuck, wait, I didn’t mean to- I wasn’t trying to imply-”

As Newton floundered for words, Hermann mustered the will to move and speak again. “Get back to work, Newton.” And he stomped away, out of the lab.

His adrenaline and humiliation-heightened senses told him that Newton was not following him. He made it safely to his quarters without a single speed bump and all but slammed the damn door shut once he was through it.

He leaned against it like he’d just run a marathon- hands braced on its pane and chest heaving. How embarrassing. How _humiliating_. This was a facet of his personality he had, for one, never known, and now it was suddenly on display and open for poking and prodding to the one person who loved to take things that made Hermann uncomfortable and dial them up to eleven.

For another, he didn’t think that this was something he’d ever actually felt before. He’d seen plenty of people with piercings. Hell, he’d even known Newton could perform them, and Mako sported a pair of holes in the lobes of her ears that Hermann was present for, if only to ensure that she was taken care of. Newton had been excessively clean, and Hermann’s promise that it was all properly handled was the only reason the marshal hadn’t torn Newton apart and served him in the mess hall with the rest of the mystery meat.

But knowing that Newton had piercings- _many, many_ piercings- was throwing Hermann’s entire body out of whack. His heart was humming, his head was pounding, and damn him, his pants were fitting just a bit too tightly.

Hermann did not have a piercing thing.

Hermann had a _Newton thing_. And that was so, so much worse.

~

Hermann made a point of staring only at the floor when he returned to the lab with coffee in hand. They had a coffee maker in the lab- Newton had insisted, and it was one of the rare moments Hermann didn’t argue- but he needed to calm down. He’d taken a walk to the mess hall and waited in a grueling line for coffee that wasn’t nearly as good as the Cuban coffee Newt kept hidden for them alone when they really needed it. By the time he’d come back, he was bitter and angry, and those emotions were preferable to what he had been feeling earlier.

“Can we talk?” Came Newton’s almost _timid_ request from a spot where Hermann refused to look.

Hermann marched right past him, straight to his chalkboard. “I do not wish to talk to you about anything, Dr. Geiszler.” It felt mean to be so harsh, but he really didn’t have time to feel the things he was feeling right now.

If the footsteps clearly crossing the line were anything to go by, Newton wasn’t listening. “Look, I’m getting the feeling that you’re thinking I’m about to pick on you for earlier.”

The chalk Hermann knew should be somewhere around here was eluding him as he searched for it, and he swore it was hiding on purpose. “I said I wasn’t talking about this, Newton, and if you do not stay on your side of the _bloody_ room I’m going to commission a fence-”

“Herms, please.”

Newton’s voice was right behind him. Hermann kept his gaze on his feet. The nickname didn’t bother him as much as how it made him feel. The anger was gone. The twisted feeling in his ribcage was back.

“Could you just look at me?”

Hermann sighed and gave his attention to the corroding metal ceiling instead. Finally, he turned around and gave Newton what he wanted.

Newton’s arms were crossed over his chest, and he looked worried. “I don’t think your piercing thing is weird, okay?”

Hermann sent him an exhausted stare.

Newton continued. “I just don’t want you to think I’m about to spread that shit around, because I won’t. I’ve got plenty of other ways to mess with you that don’t involve low blows like that.” He glanced at the ground. “I’ll even keep my piercings out around you so you don’t have to worry about it, and I’ll just go back to pissing you off on a surface level.”

This was awfully considerate of Newton, the bastard. Hermann scowled to cover the urges within him that were bubbling over. “I hate you.”

Newton was going to say a defeated ‘I know’, but he didn’t get the chance to get the words fully out before Hermann _swallowed them_. In a blink Hermann had lurched forward and taken Newton’s lips with his own, forcing Newton to taste those words again and think better of them. Hermann’s hands gripped the sides of Newton’s head, bizarrely desperate for how shaky and gentle they were. They held him like one would hold a panicked, wounded moth.

It took a moment to register that Newton wasn’t responding to the kiss. Hermann pulled back at the same speed he’d gone into it and heaved a breath. “I-” Dammit. The one time he chose to act as impulsive as Newton, and it backfired. This was not going to make their time together any easier. He squeezed his eyes shut and curled his hands away, moving back. “I apologi-”

A frantic hand collided with his chest and gripped a fistful of fabric there, knocking the rest of the word out of Hermann’s lungs. “Don’t you fucking dare,” Newton warned. Hermann stared as Newton took a breath, not looking up from where his hand was buried in and wrinkling Hermann’s shirt. “I’m sorry, you need to give my brain more than five seconds to catch up here. Who the hell follows up ‘I hate you’ with _that?_ ”

“Me, evidently.” Hermann managed.

Newt nodded shortly and finally lifted his eyes to meet Hermann’s. He held that gaze for a solid second before speaking again. “Okay. Decision made.”

“What did you de-” Newton’s hand yanked him into silence against his lips again. Hermann’s hands found purchase behind Newton’s head again, but he pressed his fingers harder into Newton’s scalp to hold him there. He felt Newton’s arms around his waist, and he was suddenly pressed back against the chalkboard. There was no pressure on his bad leg because Newt was holding him up and bracing him in such a way that he didn’t have to worry about it, that thoughtful prick. Hermann’s kiss grew hungrier, and Newton wordlessly complied, parting Hermann’s lips with his tongue.

Hermann pulled back again, much to the whining dismay of Newton. “You can’t keep stopping when I’m just about to get into it-”

“Did you take the piercing out?”

Newton stilled. “Uh, yes? I thought you didn’t-” Hermann arched a brow it him. “-…like that I-” He blinked at Hermann as a puzzle slowly pieced itself together in his head. “Wait, you’re into-”

“Newt.”

Newton swallowed hard. “Yeah?”

The corner of Hermann’s mouth twitched upward. “Put it back _in_.”

“Yes _sir_.” Newt made sure Hermann was standing on his own before scrambling away to his desk. Hermann shifted away from the boards and moved to lean on a rung of his ladder. He felt breathless, but at the same time he was filled with a sense of ease as Newton scrambled to flip the papers on his desk and find where he’d put the barbell. He took a corner too fast and slipped on a sheet of paper he’d flung to the ground, falling out of sight behind his desk. He stood up faster than he’d disappeared, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “I’m good! I’m fine!” He waved at him and began pulling out drawers like his life depended on it.

Hermann _giggled_ , which is something he didn’t realise he was still capable of. “Newton, there’s no rush. You’re going to injure yourself.”

“Yeah, no, I know, I just-” Newton filtered through the junk in one drawer. “…I wanna find it before you come to your senses.”

Hermann scoffed. “I don’t know what you could possibly mean, seeing as I am always in my right mind and do not make mistakes.”

Newton stood up and stared at him from across the room. He looked offended. “Okay hold on, that is a loaded statement. I can’t agree with you without admitting that you’re always right, but I can’t disagree with you without implying that you liking me is a mistake.”

Hermann smirked at him. “Caught on quick, haven’t you?”

“Stop being hot while you’re insulting me.” Newton dug around another drawer and beamed when he found what he was looking for. “Ha! Got the little fucker!”

As Newton put the piercing back in place, Hermann felt his body grow tense. It wasn’t an uncomfortable feeling by any means, but he felt ready for… _something_. Whatever Newton wanted to shower upon him, he was going to give as good as he got, as he always did. Newton stood up straight and flattened out his shirt.

“Now then. Where the hell were we?” He stalked across the room like a man on a mission, and Hermann barely had time to lean an inch before he was pressed against him again.

Newton started the kiss as deep as they’d left it. Hermann noted that the metal was still cool and hadn’t had time to warm up in the heat of Newt’s mouth. It pressed against Hermann’s lips and sent that chill straight down his spine. The moan that came as a result was involuntary, and Hermann made no effort to stop it.

This seemed to rev something within Newton, and with a strength he must have had from carting large pieces of equipment from place to place, he lifted Hermann up to sit higher on the rung. Hermann’s legs left the floor and draped around Newton’s waist. His arms were wrapped around Newton’s shoulders, and he could feel Newton’s piercings through his shirt again. He was losing himself in Newton, and the rest of the room was becoming a blur. “Hey Herms,” Newton managed when he left his lips for a second of air.

He’d returned to them before Hermann could form a word, so his response was a breathy, questionable sound.

Newton smirked against him, and Hermann felt every angle of it. “I lied to you before.” He said, not moving away at all so Hermann could taste the words.

Hermann grinned as well and turned his kisses to Newton’s jaw. “Somehow this doesn’t surprise me,” He murmered in the trail down to Newton’s neck. “What about?”

Newton’s chuckle was pitched high and just as breathless as Hermann’s words. He turned his head and leaned to press his next words right to Hermann’s ear. “I’ve got one more piercing for you to find.”

One rock of Newton’s pelvis against his own brought reality snapping back. Hermann pulled away with a gasp, covering his mouth to quiet himself. “Wuh- Wait.” He pushed Newton back just enough to duck his head with embarrassment. “C-Coming to my senses.”

Newton groaned and dropped his head to lean on Hermann’s. “God dammit, there it is. _Fuck_ , I’m sorry-” He went to pull away, but Hermann’s hands grabbed at his collar before he got too far.

“Not about you, you fool.” Hermann yanked him back in enough to press a kiss to the corner of Newt’s mouth. “But we are in the lab. As much as I would like to continue this, the next person through that doorway could very well be the marshal.”

Newton groaned again.

“Or, god forbid, Mr. Choi.”

Newton gave an exaggerated sigh and helped Hermann off of the rung. “Yeah, that’d be the quickest way to spread our business to everyone with ears…” He still looked disappointed as he ran his hands through his hair and turned away. He looked like he was, of all things, about to go back to work.

Well that just wouldn’t do. Hermann found his cane propped dutifully against the board and picked it up, tapping the floor with it once. “Newt?”

Newton glanced back at him, looking rejected and like a damn pouting child.

Hermann smirked at him again. “Your quarters or mine?”

And just like that, the fire was lit in Newton’s eyes again. “Mine’s closer.”

~

**Author's Note:**

> I may have a follow up to this, it was meant to be a lot longer. I decided to cut a lot of what I was planning, but I'd still like to write it? I did a lot of research on acupuncture, man, it's gotta go somewhere. >:V
> 
> As always, I subsist on comments!


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